IMF Research Bulletin

Issue Number

Latest documents

• Note from the guest editor
• Adieu to Maury

  Maurice (Maury) Obstfeld, our chief economist and RES Director, is retiring at the end of the year after more than three years on the job. His time here has been marked by many achievements, of which this short column can only elucidate a couple, while conveying some of the more personal and intangible aspects that we learned about him and that have influenced IMF staff over his tenure.

• Frontiers of Monetary Policy: Interview with Doug Laxton on the new book Advancing the Frontiers of Monetary Policy with Tobias Adrian and Maurice Obstfeld

  Since the global financial crisis, the scope of central banking has expanded and new challenges have arisen. Marika Santoro interviews Doug Laxton, one of the authors of the IMF book Advancing the Frontiers of Monetary Policy. In their discussion, Doug will guide us through the development of new tools and frameworks at central banks. The conversation will also review central banks’ communication strategies and how transparency has become key in managing expectations and engendering macroeconomic stability.

• Housing Strikes Back: Remaining Attuned to Risks

  It’s déjà vu all over again! House prices are going through the roof in major cities across the globe, reviving memories of the US boom that ended in a global financial meltdown.1 They are also raising concern about affordability, with millennials increasingly priced out and at risk of turning into "forever renters.

• Tariffs in a Globalized World
• Policymaking: New Frontiers Using Big Data

  In our previous issue, we flashed how the wave of big data has been a game changer in the past decade and what new avenues it can open for the field of economics. More important (if you are a policymaker), the large pool of information available digitally can provide new tools to guide and support policy decisions. The capability to produce new indicators, tackle official data time lags, and support forecasting can be vital for increasing the speed of inception and implementation in policymaking. A wide array of projects at the IMF has recently aimed to explore the potential in this area.

• A World with Central Bank Digital Currencies
• The 19th Jacques Polak Annual Research Conference: A Note from the Organizer
• Riding the Big Data Wave
• Can {Un}Happiness Explain Macroeconomics?

Featured documents

• The Quest for Stability in Housing Markets

  Recent developments in global house prices have led to seemingly contradictory concerns about both overheating and slow recovery, reflecting house price booms in some countries and declining prices in others. This note discusses developments in global housing markets since the Great Recession-...

• Monetary Policy Cyclicality in Emerging Markets

  Does monetary policy help smooth or amplify economic cycles? In most advanced markets monetary policy helps smooth cycles. However, for emerging markets, procyclical monetary policy has been a problem, with macroeconomic policies amplifying economic upswings and deepening downturns. This article...

• Q&A: Seven Questions on Financing for Development

  Now that the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) has concluded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in July 2015, policymakers are getting ready for the next United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2015, which should result in a global agreement on the post-2015...

• Q&A: Seven Questions on Estimating the Monetary Transmission Mechanism in Low-Income Countries

  The use of conventional vector auto-regression (VAR)-based methods to identify the monetary transmission mechanism (MTM) in low income countries suggests the MTM may be weaker and less reliable than in advanced and emerging market economies. But are structural VARs identified via short-run...

• Trade Finance and Its Role in the Great Trade Collapse

  The Great Recession stimulated research on many issues that had been overlooked previously in the profession. Trade finance is one of the best examples of these issues. Although trade finance has served as the primary driver of international transactions for centuries, it received its due attention ...

• Q&A: Seven Questions about the Relationship between Country Finance and Governance

  Economists have studied the relationship between the quality of institutions and growth extensively (North 1990). In contrast, the relationship between the quality of institutions and financial flows has been studied less. Because low-income countries depend heavily on external financing flows and...

• Q&A: Seven Questions on China-Africa Relations

  China has emerged as Sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) major trading partner and as an important lender in recent years. Sub-Saharan Africa enjoyed a trade surplus with China for more than a decade, but this has now turned to a deficit with the slump in commodity prices. China’s engagement with SSA goes...

• Trade Integration and Business Cycle Synchronization

  Over the past two decades, trade integration has increased rapidly within the world economy and tight supply chain networks have been formed, particularly within Asia. Have these developments strengthened the propagation of shocks, and more broadly the synchronization of business cycles between...

• Q&A: Seven Questions on Fintech

  The IMF recently published a paper on the potential effects of fintech on the financial sector and how regulation should adapt: "Fintech and Financial Services: Initial Considerations," co-authored by Dong He, Ross Leckow, Vikram Haksar, Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli, Nigel Jenkinson, Mikari...

• Q&A: Seven Questions on Financial Interconnectedness